MINNEAPOLIS
- If the Republican leadership thought that marginalizing Rep.
Ron Paul and ignoring his message of personal liberty and limited
government would shut him up and make him go away, they sure figured
wrong.

"There
is room now for the defense of liberty, and the people know that the
system we have is not working," Paul told an estimated crowd of
12,000 cheering supporters Tuesday evening at Target Center in Minneapolis,
Minn. "It is not working economically, it is not working monetarily,
our foreign policy is not working and therefore they're looking for
answers."

No
doubt about it The Texas congressman, who had campaigned for the GOP
presidential nomination in defiance of the party's national committee
and the roadblocks it set up was back - though in fact, he'd never gone
away. And he wasn't alone. With him were thousands of supporters --
many, if not most of them young -- cheering him on, roaring approval
when he called for a return to sound money and the gold standard, and
chanting FREEDOM, FREEDOM, FREEDOM - and NO ID, NO ID, No ID (referring
to the much hated National ID System).

In
his hour-long address, Paul hit all the bases, talking about matters
that most politicians choose to ignore: the need to scale back the federal
bureaucracy, the need to preserve and defend individual rights, and
an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He decried a foreign policy
he said has made the country less safe and created enemies abroad, and
warned against a likely reinstatement of the draft, and advocated civil
disobedience if this happens. His biggest applause seemed to come when
he called for an end to the Federal Reserve System, the National ID,
and the so-called War on Drugs.

Paul
remarked that essentially the Republic is "lost" though "it
may be hanging by a thread." "That's why I claim that we have
a sense of urgency here. We don't have decades and decades. We have
to do something rather quickly," he said.

It
was a bleak picture he painted, but Paul's message overall was upbeat
and heartening, especially his closing words:

"An
idea whose time has come can't be stopped by any army, any government,"
he said. "Even if they try they can't stop us. "we're talking
about millions of people in this country and around the world who heard
this message and it's growing. They can't stop us."

It
was the speech the audience had been waiting for - the culmination of
a 10-hour marathon of speeches and entertainment that closed the three-day
Rally for the Republic that began Sunday and overlapped the first two
days of the Republican convention. Many in the audience had traveled
hundreds of miles for the event.

Over
Labor Day weekend, while the mainstream media focused on Hurricane Gustav
and tried to get interested in what one reporter called the 'snorefest'
at the Republican National Convention at the Xcel Energy Center in St.
Paul, Minn., thousands of Paul's supporters and their allies from across
the nation converged on the Twin Cities to attend the "other convention"
- the Rally for the Republic, a counter event held 10 miles away at
venues in Minneapolis, and sponsored by Paul's Campaign
for Liberty that was formally launched on Tuesday.

They
came for inspiration, education, the opportunity to meet like-minded
people and to swap political war-stories -- a veritable army of activists
of diverse backgrounds and movements who are one or all of the following:
anti-war, anti-illegal immigration, anti-intervention in the affairs
of other nations, pro-national sovereignty, pro-individual liberty,
pro-civil liberties, pro-property rights, pro-Bill of Rights (all
Amendments), pro-sound money, and more.

"No
matter how much our message is ignored or ridiculed, as was done in
the [presidential] campaign, no matter how much they did to us, it only
energized our grass roots," Paul told the Associated
Press.

And
they were certainly energized. They arrived by car, plane and "Ronvoys"
- caravans of minivans and charter buses organized on the Internet.
A few planned to walk from Green Bay, Wis., and join Paul for the final
miles of their Walk4Freedom. Some stayed in hotels, others in campgrounds
and RV parks throughout the Twin Cities area. A dairy farmer opened
his premises to attendees for camping - perhaps in appreciation of Paul's
opposition
to the National Animal Identification System.

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"Most
of our people are not wealthy," said Drew Ivers, a longtime GOP activist
from Iowa who is Paul's delegate coordinator at the Republican Convention,
in an interview
with Beth Hawkins, a reporter for MinnPost.com.

"They're
working people feeling the pinch. They're not country-club elitists,"
Ivers explained. "With the price of gas, they're caravanning in
minivans and the like. These people are sacrificing to make this happen.
I think it's commendable."

Some
attendees were neophytes for whom the ideas are new and exciting. Paul,
a 10-term congressman from Lake Jackson in the Houston area, is 73 years
old, but many young men and women are listening to what he has to say,
drawn to his banner that extols individual rights and liberties. Jennifer
Riley, a Fargo resident and North Dakota State University student, is
one.

"I
feel a deep return to liberty because of him and it gives me a lot of
hope," Riley told the Duluth News Tribune. "This is a Republican
that actually says something."

Others
were seasoned veterans from earlier political forays, most recently
Paul's unsuccessful campaign for his party's presidential nomination
- a campaign that was denigrated by the media and ignored by the Republican
hierarchy despite its setting two record for single-day fundraising
on the Web and winning over 1.2 million votes in the primaries of several
western states. In Nevada and Montana Paul placed second ahead of Sen.
John McCain, and drew 14 percent from McCain in New Mexico, considered
a "battleground" state.

Taking
the First Step

In
an e-mail
message sent Friday Paul noted that the Democrats said nothing at
their convention about the surveillance state, the police state, Bush's
foreign policy, nor the Federal Reserve and what it's done to the economy
-- and "We can only imagine what the GOP Convention will have in
store for us."

"The
Rally for the Republic is the first step in alerting our countrymen
to these dangers, and holding out the message of freedom is the only
remedy," he wrote. "We must resist the false choices the two
major parties are giving us - join me in Minneapolis, and let's shake
the rafters."

Originally
planned as a one-day affair at the University of Minnesota's Williams
Arena on Sept. 2, by mid-July it was clear to Paul and the organizers
that there was enough interest to warrant expanding the rally into a
three-day counterweight to the GOP convention and moving to a larger
venue.

Billed
as "a clear call to the Republican Party to return to its roots
of limited government, personal responsibility, and protection of our
natural rights" organizers promised it would be "the most
spirited and provocative political event of the year."

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There
would be meetings, workshops, a concert -- but the culmination would
be a 10-hour marathon of speakers and entertainers, held Tuesday at
the Target Center.

Organizers
hoped the media would be interested, but didn't count on it. No matter
- in this age of the Internet, even if no media showed up the speeches
could be posted on You Tube and other sites. But it was very important
to have a large crowd - particularly at Tuesday's all day event.

So
they used the Internet and teams of dedicated volunteers on the street
to spread the word via postings online and old-fashioned leafleting
that the erstwhile presidential candidate was in town. Plus, posters
appeared throughout the area featuring quotes from Paul's best-selling
campaign book - The Revolution: A Manifesto.

The
hard work paid off. By Monday over 10,300 tickets for Tuesday's rally
had been sold, priced at $17.76 (yes!) each.

And
on Monday evening, a thousand supporters showed up for a book signing
at Borders book store in the Rosedale Center mall in Roseville. The
line of Paul supporters, eager to have their own autographed copy, stretched
from the book store to Macy's, more than a football field away, the
St.
Petersburg [Florida] Times reported.

Asked
why he was there, Tony Sotelo, 32, a postal worker from Ventura, Calif.,
told the SP Times -- "Are you kidding' Ron Paul has done so much for
this country. What I've done is so little compared to what he's done."

Sotelo
said he'd driven three days with his older brother Sean Sotelo to be
at the "Ron Paul Convention."

On
Sunday, 500 rally-goers attended a sold-out, half-day workshop in "Real
Politics" at the Earle Brown Heritage Center in Brooklyn Center
that Ivers described as a course in "Politics 101."

"For
most of them, this is the first time they've done this," said Ivers.
"We're training people to get back into grassroots politics. A lot of
our new people think politics is backroom stuff. At the level we want
to work at, the local, county, and community level, it's all one-on-one,
it's not backroom at all."

Next
day, Monday, at the invitation-only Leadership Summit - also held at
the Brown Heritage Center -- plans were made to build a structure for
Paul's ongoing Campaign for Liberty.

Shaking
the Rafters

Interviewed
on CNN's "American Morning" Tuesday, Paul explained that he
organized the Rally for the Republic after officials at the Republican
National Committee told him he would not be allowed to address the GOP
presidential nominating convention, and could not bring any staff with
him to the floor of the convention. Instead, he'd have to be accompanied
by a chaperone.

"It
was a bit of a slight," he observed dryly.

Nonetheless,
he said, the rally was to be a positive event focused on issues other
Republicans ignore - "the spending problems, the deficit, our foreign
policy, our national defense, our monetary policy."

"If
we are Republicans and we believe in limited government and personal
liberty we ought to be talking about these things, and I don't think
they are really too interested," he said.

He
added that speakers at the rally that day would address these matters.
And they did -- though at least one reporter did not like what he was
hearing or the audience response. Brian Montopoli, with CBS News:

"The
Paul faithful became most enthusiastic when speakers railed against
those things that many in the Libertarian-leaning crowd opposed, some
of them obscure: The Lisbon Agreement, the North American Union, a National
ID Card. (The last prompted cheers of "No ID.") When the Constitution
Party's Howard Phillips mentioned ending US involvement in the United
Nations, he got a huge cheer from the crowd; when he lauded Paul's proposal
to abolish the Federal Reserve, he got an even bigger one.

Paul's
point would be that these matters ought not to be considered "obscure,"
but should be under intense scrutiny by the American people and the
Congress.

The
lineup of speakers had been an impressive roster of libertarian and
conservative stars, with NBC's Tucker Carlson headlining the event.
The roster included -- Constitution Party
founder Howard Phillips, Mises Institute
director Lew Rockwell; former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, tax-reform
activist Grover Norquist, former two-term New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson
and former California Rep. Barry Goldwater Jr., son of the late senator,
who introduced Paul.

Top
entertainers were also on stage: country singer Sarah Evans and pop-singer
Aimee Allen, and Jimmie Vaughn. Allen sang the much-requested Ron Paul
Revolution theme song she had recorded.

Reports
from the Internet indicate the three-day Rally for the Republic was
a complete success.

This,
from a senior who calls himself HYDROMAN to the DailyPaul.com
website is a tribute in a nutshell to the rally organizers, the speakers,
his new friends, and DailyPaul.com webmaster and champion blogger Michael
Nystrom, who kept everyone up-to-date on what was happening.

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"I
loaded up my van and traveled 1200+ miles from my home on the Texas
coastal bend (The dead center of the "Redneck Riviera") to be surrounded
by 10,000+ strangers with whom I felt a kinship in freedom. I could
feel the vibrations of Liberty in my bones with every speaker that approached
the podium. This was the greatest time this old man has ever had.

"I
probably would not have known about this event without your website.

"THANKS
DUDE!

"Long
live liberty for all."

Press
coverage has been surprisingly positive or at least informative, with
articles appearing in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, the Christian
Science Monitor, and other major dailies. Tuesday morning Paul was interviewed
on CNN and that evening his speech was presented on C-SPAN.

Ron
Paul does not read canned speeches, "he always speaks from his
head and his heart." However, he does write outlines that he uses
as the basis of an address. His Rally for the Republic speech
is on the Campaign for Liberty's website.

There
is room now for the defense of liberty, and the people know that the system
we have is not working," Paul told an estimated crowd of 12,000 cheering
supporters Tuesday evening at Target Center in Minneapolis, Minn.